Back pain is one of the most widespread chronic medical conditions in Europe and until recently disc degeneration was assumed to be the main cause of it. However, scientists have now shown that there is no direct causality between disc alteration and pain.

On 15th April is the 1st International Pompe Disease Day, a campaign to raise awareness of this rare but severe gene defect. Pompe Disease is only one of more than 40 metabolic disorders that mainly affect children under the age of 10, often with devastating consequences. Now scientists of the European research project EUCLYD setting up new therapeutic methods to tackle these gene defects.

Regenerating bones with materials of natural origin that can bear a lot of weight might not be science-fiction anymore. Scientists are looking for new ways to transform complex and organized structures that already exist in nature into a device to improve bone and ligament substitution

Research groups in several countries are making progress in retinal prosthesis development. If they achieve their aims, patients who have gone blind, due to loss of their photoreceptors, could recover a better simplified form of vision than with available prostheses. One of the groups shows that diamonds could lead the way

For millions of people hearing disorders make a negative impact on their lives. Scientists are looking into new ways of treating hearing disorders, by using different sorts of nanoparticles as original inner ear delivery devices. Their hope is that nanoparticles will be able to deliver drugs that can improve or restore hearing

Professor James Geddes is Associate Director at the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center at the University of Kentucky. He talked about forefront spinal cord injury research and novel bioengineering changing patients’ lives

Reconstructing the neuronal circuitry of a damaged spine looks like a much closer goal now. European scientists for the first time demonstrated the presence of neural precursor cells in the adult human spinal cord

Sarah lives in Cornwall with her parents. She is 20 years old and has been quadriplegic since she was 18 months old. Despite being paralysed from the neck down, Sarah is independent and uses a mouth pointer to type on her PC